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Critics have been heavily talking about the ending of Jane Eyre for a long time. The ending chapter seems to suggest that the only route for women to find happiness is through marriage. It seems that through returning to Rochester, Jane is sacrificing her free-will and independence. Another way of looking at it is that she really did not sacrifice everything, but instead enters a type of relationship in which giving and receiving is equally distributed between the two. This makes sense, because Jane willingly rejected another marriage opportunity before marrying Rochester. I think that in a way, Jane is being true to herself through marrying Rochester, as a very true passion of hers is forming relationships with other. So, in a weird way, she is being free and true to herself by giving her time to another person in her life.

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At the beginning of chapter 34, Jane is closing her school for Christmas and his saying goodbye to her cousins. Diana and May visit and love Jane's improvements to the school. St. John asks Jane to give up learning German and come with him to learn "Hindustani," in preparation to his missionary work where he has to go and preach Christianity in India. He has had control over Jane throughout the novel, and at first Jane accepts. When he asks her to marry him, she finally stands up for herself and refused the offer. St. John is outraged, stating the fact she is refusing his offer means that she is also throwing away her faith in Christianity. This is used for the themes of people using religion to gain control over others. It also shows Eyre's character growth through her finally not letting St. John make decision for her. She is changing from a bird trapped in a cage into a bird soaring through the sky.

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Chapter 28 is interesting to me because it heavily involves the idea of prayer. While she is stuck begging for food and for jobs in the nearby town, she  always stops to pray. This plays into her character trait of always keeping her faith, and it seems to help her push on even through the hardest of times. She meets two young women studying German in a shop. When she finds Hannah and she at first refuses to let her in, she pleads, “I can but die, and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His will in silence.” This also plays into the religious side of her personality. This catches the eye of St. John, and he responds with, “All men must die, but all are not condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would be if you perished here of want.” I think the point of this is that this place had potential meaning to bring to Eyre's life, as religon is something she deeply cares about as well as this new community she had found. It is something she can relate too.

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In Chapter 27 Eyre is in Thornfield. She gets there after falling asleep for a while. When she comes out of her room in the house, she sees Rochester sitting in a chair. Rochester begins to beg for forgiveness, claiming he never meant to hurt her. Eyre confides to the reader that she forgave him on the spot. He offers for her to move with him to the South of France, where they will live together as husband and wife. Because Eyre does not want to spend her days as a wife to Rochester, she uses the excuse that she can be no more than a mistress to him with Bertha still in the picture. It is revealed in this chapter that Bertha's mother is in an insane asylum. Rochester found himself alone after his father and brother's death, alone with a madwomen and bucket loads of cash. He considered ending his own life, but left himself alone when he found purpose in being married to Eyre. This is an example of emotional abuse and manipulation found throughout Jane Eyre and Rochester's relationship throughout the book.

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Chapter 23 really caught me off guard. Jane asks Rochester to marry her! After a "blissful" two weeks, Rochester invites Jane to walk around the gardens. Rochester confides in Jane that he has decided to marry Blanche Ingram. Jane is shocked and saddened at the potential distance between Ireland and Thornfield. Rochester tells Jane that he feels connected to her through a "chord of communication." Jane says she was "obliged to yield," as she confessed her love to Rochester. To her surprise, Rochester asks her to be his wife. She is mad at first, thinking he is teasing her. Rochester admits he made up marring Ingram in order to stir jealousy from Jane. She still accepts to request despite the manipulation. This plays into how Rochester will do anything to get her to marry him, and has used mental abuse and manipulation to get her to give up her freedoms and submit to him.

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Chapter 20 is an intense chapter and I find it to be one of my favorites. Jane gets woken up when she hears a cry for help. When she runs out to the hall, Rochester brushes it off as just being a nightmare. He then proceeds to ask her if she is afraid of blood. Confused, Jane asks him why. He asks her to help Mr. Mason, who had been stabbed in the arm. Continued used of Religion is used, as Jane gazes across an image of Christ and his disciples on the counter top. Later, Rochester tells Jane a hypothetical story about a young man who commits "capital error" in an outside country and leads the man to a dishonest life in search of "relief." I think Rochester is using this story to refer to Jane Eyre, as a means to try to dissuade her from trying to leave and find more freedom, as characterized simply as "relief."

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The Thornfield Hall seems to have some supernatural qualities about it. As they are traveling around the property, they keep on hearing strange, maniacal laughter near where the roof is. Mrs. Fairfax blames the noise on the servant Grace Poole, a seamstress who is scolded by Mrs. Fairfax and reminded to "remember directions." This is a red flag to me that Grace is not treated well by the people she works for and is taught not to question things and just to do the same thing every day. “You have saved my life; I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would have been tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation; but you, is different—I feel your benefits no burden, Jane…I knew…you would do me good in some way at some time; I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you”

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Chapter 11 has a heavy theme of gender roles within it's text. When Jane Eyre goes to the Thornfield Hall, she meets a nice elderly lady named Mrs. Fairfax, who leads her through the house to her bedroom. At first, it is assumed that Mrs. Fairfax is the owner of the property. It shows her cleaning and taking care of the house as if it is her own. But then it is revealed that instead of being the owner of the property, she is actually the house keeper. It turns out Mr. Rochester is actually the owner of the house but only shows up every once in a while. Mrs. Fairfax regards Mr. Rochester as the "master" of the property. This is a social look at how it was seen in society that women had to look up to their "masters" and could not own their own property. "Mr. Rochester, as he sat in his damask-covered chair, looked different to what I had seen him look before—not quite so stern; much less gloomy. There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes sparkled, whether with wine or not, I am not sure, but I think it very probable. He was…more expanded and genial, and also more self-indulgent, than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning; still, he looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on his granite-hewn features, and in his great, dark eyes."

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When I first started to read Jane Eyre, I immedietly began to correlate the work with what we discussed in class involving Victorian Women. The book Jane Eyre follows the life of an orphan dealing with many different societal struggles, with one highlighted as being prejudiced against for her womanhood. The first 10 chapters deal with what a lot of Victorian laws seemed to insinuate about how women were seen: as second-class citizens. Women were also brought up to not indulge in their emotions and to settle. We can see this within the following quote, 

"I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen: that I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach...I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes..." (Bronte, pg. 95)

Jane is saying that society won't let her see her visions be recognized, and it always leads her to be restless and unhappy. This quote also uses values of Magical Realism. I am intrigued by how Bronte uses Magical Realism to connect Jane Eyre to the real world. In my research, I found this very interesting article about how Bronte connected Fairytale elements to the real world.

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Dr Carol Atherton explores how Charlotte Brontë mixes fantasy with realism in Jane Eyre, making use of fairytale and myth and drawing on the imaginary worlds she and her siblings created as children.

Professor John Bowen explains how Charlotte Brontë combines fairytale, Gothic techniques and realism to give Jane Eyre its unique power. Filmed at the Brontë Parsonage, Haworth.

is often seen as a profoundly realistic novel, drawing on Charlotte Brontë's own experiences to paint a vivid picture of Jane's suffering at Lowood and her struggle against the narrow role that 19th-century society allotted to women. Nevertheless, the novel also contains a strong element of fantasy. Right from the start - hidden in the window-seat, where she sits, 'cross-legged, like a Turk' - Jane escapes into a world of imagination, losing herself in the wild frozen landscapes of Bewick's History of British Birds, and thinking of the fairytales and ballads told by Bessie, the nurse, on winter evenings. Fantasy is thus established as a counterpoint to Jane's real-life privations, and as a rich source of imagery.

Bewick's The History of British Birds

Extract from Thomas Bewick's History of British Birds (1797, 1804), showing one of the tiny illustrations Jane Eyre refers to as a child.

Notes on the Folk Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders

William Henderson's Notes on the Folk Lore of the Northern Counties of England (1866) contextualises the fairy and folk references found in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

Rochester

One important strand of fantasy in the novel surrounds Jane's relationship with Rochester, which is shot through with references to myth and fairytale. When Jane encounters Rochester's dog Pilot in Hay Lane, just before she meets Rochester himself, her first thought is of the 'Gytrash', a mythical black dog said to haunt the deserted roads of northern England. Rochester repeatedly refers to Jane as a 'sprite' and a 'fairy', and claims that she 'bewitched' his horse (ch. 13). The paintings that Jane shows to Rochester - of a cormorant perched on a desolate shipwreck, the goddess Selene rising into the sky above Mount Latmos, and a 'colossal head' wreathed in 'turban folds' - are straight out of fantasy, influenced by Brontë's knowledge of the Bible and of Greek mythology (ch.13). And the tale of the poor orphan who overcomes obstacles to marry a rich man can itself be seen as having its roots in fairytale, although what could appear as a simple rags-to-riches story is complicated by Rochester's references to himself as an 'ogre' (ch. 24), the fact that Jane is emphatically not a Beauty, and the troubling fact that in the fairytale canon, the most famous imprisoner of wives is, of course, the murderer Bluebeard.

The Brontës' childhood fantasies

If the realistic elements of Jane Eyre can be traced back to its author's childhood, then so can its more fantastical side. This has its roots in the 'web' of stories woven by the Brontë children. These began, famously, when the Revered Brontë brought home a box of soldiers from a trip to Leeds in 1826. Charlotte described this event in her idiosyncratic spelling in her 'History of the Year':

Emily and I jumped out of bed and I snat[c]hed up one and exclaimed this is the Duke of Wellington it shall be mine!! When I said this Emily likewise took one and said it should be hers when Anne came down she took one also. Mine was the prettiest of the whole and perfect in every part Emilys was a Grave looking ferllow we called him Gravey. Anne's was a queer little thing very much like herself. he was called waiting Boy Branwell chose Bonaparte.

Professor John Bowen and Ann Dinsdale discuss the fantasy worlds of Gondal and Angria, created by the Brontë children, and the lasting influence of these on the sisters' later novels. Filmed at the Brontë Parsonage, Haworth.

Brontë juvenilia: 'The History of the Young Men'

Branwell Bronte's account of the toy soldiers from his 'The History of the Young Men', written in 1830.

These soldiers became the basis for the imaginary worlds of Angria and Gondal that absorbed so much of the children's attention. Set in Africa and the South Pacific, and featuring a cast of characters based on contemporary political figures such as Wellington (Charlotte's hero) and Napoleon, and influenced by the writings of Byron and Scott, the Angria stories (created by Charlotte and Branwell) and their Gondal counterparts (the invention of Emily and Anne) were an early education in writing about political intrigue and tempestuous romance. Indeed, critics such as Christine Alexander have argued that they allowed their authors to explore emotions that had few other outlets. They were written up into tiny books and absorbed their authors well into adulthood, occupying a space in their imaginations that was in some ways even more vivid than reality.

As an adult, Charlotte struggled to detach herself from the world of Angria, which increasingly became the possession of Branwell. Nevertheless, many of the fantastical elements of Jane Eyre have their roots in Angria; and the character of Rochester - dark, complex and brooding - is a direct descendant of the Angrian hero the Duke of Zamorna. An awareness of fantasy is, therefore, essential to an understanding of both Jane Eyre and the imagination that shaped it, adding another dimension to a novel that is grounded so firmly in reality.

Brontë juvenilia: Tales

'Is the Duke of Zamorna sane or insane?': from 'The Spell', a short story focussed on the Zamorna character and written by Charlotte Brontë as part of the Angrian saga. The Duke of Zamorna can be seen as a precedent for Rochester in Jane Eyre.

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Carol Atherton is Head of English at Spalding Grammar School in Lincolnshire. She has worked with a number of organisations, including NATE, the British Library, the Poetry Archive and the British Council, and was made a Fellow of the English Association in 2009. A specialist in literary theory and pedagogy, she has written widely on the teaching of English Literature, curricular reform and the nature of disciplinary knowledge.

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Dr Carol Atherton explores how Charlotte Brontë mixes fantasy with realism in Jane Eyre, making use of fairytale and myth and drawing on the imaginary worlds she and her siblings created as children. Professor John Bowen explains how Charlotte Brontë combines fairytale, Gothic techniques and realism to give Jane Eyre its unique power.

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While reading other people's blogs, I really find it interesting how other's decided to relate the character of Jane Eyre to other characters in media. By reading and analyzing the character of Jane Eyre, I can see that she is very honest and blunt about things. Jane is constantly confronting many individuals who threaten her autonomy, but she is always able to assert herself using justice and always doing what she believes to be the right thing. Jane Eyre is also fiercely independent and doesn't like to back down from those who doubt her goals.

The character I think is similar to Jane Eyre is Toph Beifong from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Like Eyre, Beifong always struggled with people thinking she was helpless and people just wanting to take care of her, not considering that she could take care of herself.
Not only did people underestimate Toph because she was a little girl, but also because she was blind. What other's saw as a weakness, Toph used it to her advantage, and was able to use her unique form of being able to see with her feet to be able to out best those who tried taking advantage of or attacking her. While Jane Eyre's parents died
when she was little, Toph ran away when she felt that her parents were holding her back and were not treating her as an equal. Also just like Eyre, Toph breaks the stereotypes of women in so many different ways. Toph is a prevalent tomboy, she isn't quiet, does not like to take no for an answer, and is unapologetic and honest. This article below also explains Toph Beifong's character very well and how she is a very well written strong independent character.